We’re in 1930s Korea, and young Sook-Hee (Kim Tae-ri) has just landed a new job: a stint as handmaiden to a wealthy Japanese heiress, Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), who lives with her widowed uncle (Cho Jin-woong) and their coterie of servants in an imposing manor somewhere in the countryside. Sook-Hee, however, isn’t just here for the fresh air and pretty scenery—she’s part of a ring of Korean con artists whose repertoire extends from art forgery to selling babies to the Japanese. This time, she’s been tasked with helping one of her colleagues, Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), seduce and eventually relieve the sheltered, ingenuous Hideko of her inheritance, a cut of which has been promised to Sook-Hee. 

Things are moving on course, at least initially: Sook-Hee looks to have won Hideko’s favour—perhaps even her affection—and the Count, too, has smarmed himself into her good books, and is readying to go in for the kill. But, the more time she spends in the company of her lovely, ethereal mistress, the more Sook-Hee finds herself falling for her, and reluctant to go through with the planned betrayal—and she also can’t help feeling there’s something else going on in this grand old house, with its mysterious rooms filled with ancient things (and that old man with the black tongue), than is immediately apparent on the surface. What seemed straightforward to begin with, then, is soon revealed to be a complex entanglement of psychological games—manipulator and manipulatee swapping places over and over again in a jumble of crosses and double-crosses—all tumbling onwards to a heady, surprising and very satisfying climax. 

The Handmaiden comprises the latest offering from Korean director Chan-wook Park, known most for the masterful, stylised bloodfest that was the Vengeance trilogy (2002-2005), and more recently, 2013’s comparatively less-violent but still deeply disturbing English-language Stoker. This new film, meanwhile, has been adapted from a 2002 crime novel by Sarah Parke, Fingersmith, set in the Victorian era, which might sound like an odd choice for source material at first, but the transplantation will make perfect sense as one goes along. Reveling in eccentric perversity and pitch-black wit, and marked by some wonderful performances and visuals, The Handmaiden makes for an intense, utterly unpredictable ride, a period thriller that ticks all the boxes and underscores Park’s standing among the most exciting present-day filmmakers in the genre. 

The film follows a three-part structure, each section shown from the perspective of one of the main characters, and each serving to draw the curtain back a little further, reveal a little more. Frequently, Park will return to certain key moments, allowing us to see them with new eyes and locate new meaning, so that the picture is constantly shifting, assumptions turned inside out—making it practically impossible to know what to expect next—and everything only clicking into place with elegant relish in the last half hour or so.  

As for the selection of this particular period setting—a time when Korea was still under Japanese rule—it has allowed Park and co-writer Seo-Kung Chung the opportunity to explore the effects of such an occupation, on broader cultural and social practices, certainly, but more specifically, on the psyche of the occupied. It speaks of how the colonisers are both reviled and fetishised, the supremacy of their values and ways of life both derided and aspired to, in a complicated, contradictory identity tussle: there’s the Korean man, for instance, who expends a great deal of time and money to acquire rare Japanese artifacts, whose “book club” (deliberately in quotes) caters to the twisted tastes of tux-wearing Japanese intellectuals, but who then tyrannises his young Japanese ward.

Related to this, and more in line with Parke’s book, The Handmaiden is also about the empty, suffocating affectations of high society, the constraints laid on the actions and choices—particularly those of women—therein, and the desires and depravities that churn beneath the mannered veneer. The film attempts an admirable examination of female sexuality, and for the most part, the treatment of intimate scenes is tasteful—graphic though they most certainly are, rather than the tawdry blatancy of porn, the approach is more subtle, textural, relying on a deliciously slow build-up. Park does, however, falter now and then in this regard: although The Handmaiden can be exhilarating in the moments when we see the women shed their inhibitions, push past repressive codes, assert their pleasures, there are still times it reverts to the same old gratuitous, objectifying cues, most evident in the film’s very last scene, one that I wish had been left out on the cutting room floor. 

Those few slips, however, do not detract from the overall impact of Park’s film, a large part of which also owes to the cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon and Ryu Seong-hie’s art direction, working together to pull off a mix of visual styles—overall clean lines and subtle colours that point to the minimalist aesthetics of Japanese design, combined with sets heaving with the ornate exuberance of Gothic decor. The attention to detail here is just incredible, and we’re offered our pick of some memorable images: whether it be that of a musty closet and drawers being carefully opened to uncover fine old things (and a surprise); a snow-white cherry-blossom tree standing like a sentinel in the garden, a reminder of tragedies past and future; or a joyous, liberating run through the fields in the light of dawn, the effect amplified by a Cho Young-wuk’s sweeping score. And though The Handmaiden does boast a touch of the kind of violent extremities that Park has channeled in his most popular works, it is a great deal subdued (save some latter scenes), employed more in the service of gags than for anything else. Indeed, those occasional, unexpected flashes of humour are crucial in providing much-needed releases from the otherwise oppressive tension.

The Handmaiden has also lucked out with a fantastic cast—including the debutant Kim as Sook-hee—more than capable of keeping up with the demands of their roles, easily managing the sudden changes of perspective and persona, and convincing all the way through. Cho, as the wizened uncle, is the only one who strikes a bit of a false note, his performance a touch too hammy for my liking. But his stint is mercifully short, and it is the two women, both pitch perfect, who dominate the running time. 

Depending on your proclivities towards the genre, you will either love or loathe The Handmaiden. But for all the flaws you might see, one thing you can’t accuse the film of is being dull.